RIVER FALLS, WIS. ? It’s the sort of division that should have ripped the Kansas City Chiefs apart: the highest-scoring offense in the NFL, paired with a defense so inept its members felt the need to apologize.

Yet the crippling imbalance only has deepened this team’s sense of camaraderie.

“It didn’t tear us apart. If anything, it’s going to bring us closer,” tight end Tony Gonzalez said. “That’s what I like about the maturity of this team.”

There are no tempers flaring during the grueling two-a-day workouts in their Wisconsin hideaway. Instead, the veteran offensive standouts refuse to tolerate dissension among the ranks as they prepare for what could be a final Super Bowl run.

“We’re not a young football team,” said Gonzalez, a five-time All-Pro. “We know that stuff is a cancer. If we start letting it get to us, then we’re not as good as we think we are. It’s all of us together.”

Gonzalez was one of six members of the offense chosen for the Pro Bowl in January after the Chiefs led the NFL in scoring for the second year in a row. Counting kick returner/wide receiver Dante Hall, that’s more than half the offensive starters.

After ranking 32nd in the 32-team league the year before, coordinator Greg Robinson’s defense climbed up all the way to 29th in a 13-3 campaign. But in the final two months, Robinson’s defense collapsed entirely, giving up 45 points in losses at Minnesota and Denver and then suffering a humiliating 38-31 loss to Indianapolis in their first playoff game.

In that game, the Chiefs defense failed to force the Colts to punt even once. No team in league history ever had scored so many points in the postseason and lost. Afterward, dejected defenders apologized to their offensive teammates.

But a few weeks later, while accepting the MVP award at the team’s annual awards banquet, quarterback Trent Green met the issue head-on.

Football was a team game, he said. The team wins together, and the team loses together.

Defensive players stared at their silverware while Green reminded everyone that the offense, too, had its share of pratfalls.

“There were a number of them who came up to me and came up to our offensive players and apologized,” Green said this week. “They said, ‘You guys had a great year. You scored enough points for us to win.’ They felt bad.

“I wanted them to know … I didn’t think they should go through the entire offseason and the entire preseason feeling like everything was their fault or everything fell on their shoulders.

“Sometimes you win 10-7. Sometimes you win 45-42.”